This Night of Nights
by Victoria M
Summary: Every year it comes.


**This Night of Nights**

Summary: It comes every year

Stanza 1. Santa Claus is Coming to Town

_Tutti, divisi_

Coming down to the commissary on Christmas Eve for his last coffee of the day, Napoleon found it humming with activity. It seemed that no-one in HQ, apart from himself and the Old Man, had any work to do, and in consequence had headed for the cafeteria to share the festive spirit with all the other slackers. April Dancer was playing cards with Illya, wearing a hat with reindeer antlers on it; the three indistinguishable platinum blondes from Control were weaving through the tables, demanding mistletoe kisses; George Dennell was constructing a Christmas tree out of knives and forks; and Mark Slate, who had, somewhat improbably, been a boy chorister, was treating everyone to the solo from Once in Royal David's City, in what he claimed was counter-tenor, but Napoleon wincingly thought of as falsetto. At last the Australian contingent could bear it no longer and drowned him out with a roaring chorus of something apparently called Six White Boomers.

"What's a boomer?" asked Wanda, always keen to expand her cultural horizons where field agents were concerned.

"It's an old man kangaroo," Paul Matthews enlightened her. "You don't think Santa keeps using those poncey reindeer once he crosses into the southern hemisphere, do you? No, he dumps Dasher and Dancer and Dogface and the rest and hitches up his boomers." And without further ado he launched into a full rendition of that Australian cultural gem:

_Six white boomers, snow white boomers_

_Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun!_

_Six white boomers, snow white boomers_

_On his Australian run!_

Napoleon wasn't sure that Once In Royal David's City hadn't been preferable. Apparently April felt the same.

"Are you sure you don't mind taking the graveyard shift tonight, Illya?" he heard her raise her voice to ask above the din. "It seems an awfully lonely way to spend Christmas Eve."

"Borrow my guitar, strum a few carols if you get bored," suggested Mark.

"I don't know any carols," said Illya firmly. "We don't celebrate Christmas in Russia. Anyway, I get New Year's Eve off in lieu, which is the festival that really counts. Galloway and I are planning to compare Hogmanay and Russian traditions."

"Both of which involve copious quantities of alcohol," put in Mandy.

Wanda giggled. "My money's on Duncan," she said. "He'll drink you under the table."

"Assuming he's out of hospital in time," said Lisa Rogers, who could always be relied on to put a damper on a party mood. Duncan Galloway had suffered a punctured gut in a drive-by Thrush shooting and was unlikely to be drinking anything for a long time.

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Mark said "I thought you grew up in Kiev, Illya? Didn't you sing carols as a tiddler, before the godless communists arrived?"

Illya looked briefly furious - understandably, in Napoleon's opinion, since Mark's question had violated the unspoken code that you didn't ask field agents about their past lives - but he merely said "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

"Oh, come on," scoffed Lisa, rushing in where agents feared to tread, "Surely you're not that naïve? Christmas has nothing to do with religion. It's all about materialism, served up with a sauce of sentiment and 'family values'."

"An excellent Leninist analysis," said Illya. "And, as an American, you will know better than me whether there is any spark of meaning beneath the tinsel."

"Sure there is," protested Mandy. "It wouldn't be the same if it was just presents without the Baby Jesus."

"I've always wondered how Father Christmas manages to deliver all those presents in one night," said Mark, evidently relieved that the conversation had shifted to safer ground.

George looked up from his cutlery tree, his eyes glinting. "He relies on science, of course."

April threw him a look. "A scientific explanation for how one man and eight flying reindeer - oh, sorry Paul, plus six kangaroos - can deliver millions of presents all over the world in a single night? Forgive my skepticism."

George pulled out a pen, and glanced around for some paper. "Okay, let's start with the logistics, so we know what challenge Santa is facing. Say the world population is 3 billion -"

"Yes, but he only has to deliver to Christian families," put in Illya, handing George a paper napkin, "and he farms some of those deliveries out to the Christ Child, and in Orthodox countries he does not bring presents at all, so that reduces the workload considerably."

"Okay," said George, "Ballpark figure, based on the populations of Europe and the Americas: 1 billion Christians. Let's say 30 of those are under 18, and on average there are 3 kids per family." His pen flew across the paper napkin. "That makes around 100 million households, though if we leave out the sub-contracting and the Orthodox Church and sundry sects, that reduces it to approximately 80 million families he's got to cover in 24 hours."

"Doesn't leave him much time," said Wanda.

"Ah," said George, "But if he travels _backwards_, against the rotation of the earth, he can gain an extra twelve hours delivery time, a total of 2,880 minutes, or 172,000 seconds. Hmmm, that gives him a whacking great 0.00215 seconds per delivery, and that's assuming he just chucks the presents straight down the chimney and doesn't stop to hang them in stockings. He ain't gonna manage it without some very high-tech assistance."

"Maybe he has a teleportation device in his sledge," suggested Mandy. "Beam me up, Prancer!"

"Now there's a thought," said George delightedly. "Quantum entanglement would allow action-at-a-distance, so we can convey all the information we need to remove Santa from his sleigh and instantaneously rebuild him on the hearth by the chimney - right, Illya?"

Illya shook his head. "You're forgetting Heisenberg," he said, "Any attempt to measure the complete state of Santa's atoms would scramble it…"

Treading softly so as not disturb anyone - although given all the hubbub he could probably have danced naked and no-one would have noticed - Napoleon retreated back through the door. He always found Christmas difficult, and this year was clearly going to be no exception.

Stanza 2. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

_Solo, con malincolico_

If intelligence is defined as the ability to learn from your mistakes, then Napoleon Solo was one of the stupidest men at UNCLE. Every year it happened, and every year he thought that this time around it would be different. It was Christmas Eve, and he had arranged a hot date; had, indeed, been saving it for this very occasion. He planned to spend the evening dancing, dining and flirting, and the night engaging in even more pleasurable activities. But as the afternoon wore on, and his appointment with the delightful Jessica drew ever closer, he felt less and less able to paste on a smile and whisper sweet nothings. By the time he left the office, he knew it was pointless, and stopped off at a call box to cancel.

"Oh, Napoleon," - he could hear her pouting down the line - "I was so looking forward to it, and now I'm going to be all on my ownsome on Christmas Eve!"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, holding his nose to give his voice the requisite nasal quality, "but I'm sure a dose of the flu isn't quite the kind of Christmas gift you had in mind. And besides," he added pathetically, "I've got a raging fever and a terrific headache."

"Oh, you poor darling! Shall I come and mop your fevered brow?"

"No, there's no need," said Napoleon hastily, and sneezed explosively into the mouthpiece, "I shall struggle on alone. You go dancing with one of your second-stringers. I'm sure a lovely girl like you has lots of options."

Jessica gave a sultry chuckle. "Well, since you put it like that… Merry Christmas then, Napoleon. Get well soon."

"Merry Christmas, Jess."

Having hung up, Napoleon stood irresolutely on the sidewalk outside the call box. Relieved though he was not to have to spend the evening in company, he now found he had an insuperable objection to the thought of returning to an empty apartment. Fortunately, New York was full of all sorts of places that a man could go when he couldn't go home, and Napoleon knew most of them.

The very first bar he tried proved to be ideal. It was small and smoky and already crowded, and its one concession to the festive season was a second-rate crooner, who was apparently working his way through the entire back catalogue of schmaltzy Christmas songs. Talking to strangers proved to be an effective form of anaesthetic, but unfortunately it also necessitated drinking a certain amount of alcohol. The whiskey and soda slipped down with treacherous ease, and, having infiltrated his brain, began a rearguard action against his already shaky defences. He wasn't sure why Christmas Eve left him so damn vulnerable - no, that wasn't true, he knew perfectly well why; he had been on the last ship to be evacuated from Hungnam harbor, and he could still see the faces of the thousands of terrified refugees left behind, and hear the explosions as the battleships began to systematically destroy their city - but it wasn't as if the war troubled him much the rest of the year. Perhaps it was the irony of the date that undid him. "Merry Christmas from Uncle Sam," he murmured, and rose to pay his tab. If he couldn't be in company, and he couldn't be alone, there was nothing for it but to head back to the office and bury himself in paperwork.

Stanza 3. It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

_A tre voci_

As CEA, Napoleon had a pass key to all areas of HQ, so it was no problem for him to fetch the file he needed from Waverly's office. To his surprise, as the door slid softly open, he heard someone singing. It was a male voice, apparently issuing from a gramophone on Waverly's desk:

_When this lousy war is over_

_No more soldiering for me,_

_When I get my civvy clothes on,_

_Oh, how happy I shall be._

The tune was achingly sad, at odds with the coarsely optimistic words. Even the room itself seemed to have reformed around its elegiac mood. Gone were the polished chrome and other symbols of efficient modernity, swallowed up by darkness, for the only source of illumination was a single candle. Waverly was gazing into it, his face blank and absent, apparently lost in the song.

_No more church parades on Sunday,_

_No more putting in for leave..._

Reluctant to intrude on so a private a moment, Napoleon coughed discreetly. Waverly jumped, startled by the sound, and the gramophone needle skipped to the next track.

_We've seen 'em, we've seen 'em, hanging on the old barbed wire…_

Recovering from his surprise, Waverly reached across and lifted the needle. The music stopped, but in the silence the words still hung heavy in the darkened room.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, sir," said Napoleon. "I thought you were going to be at home for Christmas?"

"Oh yes, yes," said Waverly, "The Day itself is a family festival, that's only right and proper. But this evening…" He sighed. "So many absent friends. It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, you know. At least, that's what they told us, and that's what we told each other, in the trenches. But then came the Hitler war, and then your war, and we still seem to be at it today. Will it ever end, do you think?"

"I hope so, sir," said Napoleon. It sounded more trite than he'd intended.

Waverly nodded. "Hope," he said. "Very important. Isn't that what Christmas is all about?" For a moment he gazed into the candle flame again, then said abruptly "I shan't detain you when you've work to do. I must be getting back to help my wife with the tree."

"Come and have a coffee first, sir," suggested Napoleon, who thought it rather unlikely that Mrs Waverly was still up and decorating this close to midnight. Waverly grunted, and Napoleon took that as assent.

Walking through the empty corridors felt strange, even with the Old Man to accompany him. The polished walls had a slightly unearthly quality, as if the absence of the humans they were meant to shelter had allowed them to take on an alien life of their own. In the silence, Napoleon could hear the faint hum of the electrics and the distant hissing of the heating system. As they approached the door leading to the control room, Waverly suddenly stopped.

"Listen!" he said.

Through the open door, faint and sweet, came the sound of a guitar. Illya had apparently taken Mark's advice after all. As they stood there, a few more chords drifted towards them, and then Illya started to sing. He had a good voice, and Napoleon recognized the tune immediately - it seemed that, in spite of his protests, Illya did know at least one carol - but the words were unfamiliar.

_Tykha nich, svyata nich  
Yasnist' bye vid zirnyts'  
Dytynon'ka presvyata  
Taka yasna mov zorya  
Spochyvaye u sni  
Spochyvaye u sni._

"Is that Russian?" said Napoleon, frowning at his lack of understanding. His Russian was primitive, but not that primitive.

"Ukrainian, I should think," said Waverly. He had a faraway look on his face. "We sang this, you know, one Christmas Eve. And the Germans in the trenches opposite joined in. They were only about a hundred feet away."

Napoleon remembered hearing about that. Hadn't the two sides even interrupted hostilities to play football on Christmas Day, before returning to their mutual slaughter? And he remembered the legend of the carol's origin, written for Midnight Mass over a hundred and fifty years ago, when a church organ broke on Christmas Eve. Closing his eyes against the metal walls and harsh lighting, Napoleon could see the little Austrian church as clearly as if he had been physically present at that first performance - the dark stone walls sparsely lit by guttering candles, breath rising in the freezing air, and the chorus of voices raised in song.

_Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht_

_Alles schläft, einsam wacht_

_Nur das traute, hochheilige Paar._

_Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar_

_Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh',_

_Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh'._

Napoleon opened his eyes in surprise. The voice was Waverly's, an unexpectedly steady baritone for a man of his age. Napoleon himself was no great shakes as a singer, but joining in seemed the right thing to do. He followed Waverly into the room, and as the other two men began the next verse, added his own voice to theirs.

_Silent night, holy night,_

_All is calm, all is bright,_

_Round yon virgin mother and child,_

_Holy infant so tender and mild.._.

Guided by the melody, the three languages twined around each other, until it was impossible to tell who was singing what. Illya proved to know the descant, and so English, German and Ukrainian blended and harmonized, just as two languages had blended on that long ago Christmas in the trenches, igniting in the singers a tiny flame of hope that there could, after all, be an end to war and to violence and to suffering.

_Sleep in heavenly peace,_

_Sleep in heavenly peace_.

At that point Illya broke off, which was just as well, since Napoleon didn't know any more verses. He shot a slightly embarrassed glance at Waverly.

"Extraordinary how potent music can be," the Old Man said gruffly. "I'm not sure it's true, mind you, all that 'Peace on earth, goodwill to men' stuff, but I suppose the key thing is to try to believe in it. I won't bother about that coffee after all, Mr Solo. My wife will be waiting up for me. She always does, you know. Good night, gentlemen, and, ah, Merry Christmas."

"Yes, sir. Merry Christmas to you too," said Napoleon.

As he saw Waverly out of the back entrance, he reflected that the Old Man was quite right. Music really did have considerable power, and while he didn't think he'd be asking Illya to bust out the guitar every time the memories got too much for him, there was no denying that he felt more - well, peaceful. The thought of work seemed to have lost some of its appeal; in fact, he was quite certain he could find more enjoyable ways of getting through the next few hours. For a moment he contemplated calling Jessica and saying he'd made a dramatic recovery, but a glance at his watch told him it was too late. And perhaps that sort of company wasn't entirely appropriate, on such a night as this.

With a visible shrug, Napoleon threw off the last shreds of his black mood, and went to find Illya.


End file.
